Who Loves You Best (27 page)

“What do you mean,
my
access?”

“You can’t possibly think I’m going to give you custody.”

“They’re my
babies!”
Clare gasps. “You can’t take them away from me!”

“Oh, please,” I snarl. “Don’t pretend you want them. Ever since they were born, all you’ve done is dump them on someone else.”

“That’s not true—”

I lean over her, experiencing a nasty thrill of satisfaction
as she flinches away. “Your company has always come first with you, hasn’t it, Clare? For Christ’s sake, what kind of woman waits till she’s thirty-seven to start a family?”

“We said … we decided …”

“
You
decided. You always decide, don’t you? Well, not this time. You think I’m going to let you keep the children so you can try to kill them again?”

“Don’t be so ridiculous! I
love
them! I’d never do anything to harm them!” She sucks in a breath. “This is the twenty-first century, Marc. Millions of women work, but it doesn’t mean they don’t love their children. You can’t take the twins away just because I have a job.”

“You’ve made your choice. You can keep your damn company. But I’m keeping the kids.”

Clare springs out of the chair with such force, I take a step backwards. Her eyes burn like chips of blue ice in her pale face.

“You … will … not … take … my … children,” she spits. “I don’t care if I have to give up every single shop. I won’t let you take them away from me.”

For the first time, I realize this isn’t going to be a slamdunk after all.

I head towards the door. “You’re an unfit mother. You abandoned your children, and now, when it suits you, you think you can claim them back. Well, forget it. By the time I’ve finished with you, you won’t be allowed in the same room as the twins, never mind get custody.”

“You’ll never win! No court in the country will let you take two tiny babies from their mother!”

“Watch me,” I tell her, and slam the door behind me.

“It’s the third time she’s gotten me a parking ticket,” I fume. “It’s not like I needed her to renew her passport yesterday. We’re not going to Montreal until October. She could have gone to the passport office any time. She certainly didn’t need to park my car on a double yellow to do it. Never mind the congestion charge during peak hours on a weekday—”

“I don’t want to interrupt you mid-rant, but are you sure you don’t want to come back to mine for a cup of tea?” Fran asks mildly. “Or something stronger?”

I make room for her to sit down next to me on the front steps. “I can’t. We’ve got to wait for the wretched locksmith now, thanks to Jenna. I can’t believe she’s locked us all out. I
told
her the keys were on the hall table.”

“C’mon, Clare. Don’t you remember what it felt like to be so mad about some bloke you wandered around with your head up your arse?”

“Frankly,” I snap, “no.”

“Give me a break. You were crazy about Marc. You rang me up after every date to give me chapter and verse. ‘Oh, Fran, when he kisses me, I can feel it in my—’”

“OK, OK.” I shush her impatiently. “We don’t need the world to know.”

“What happens to all that?” Fran reflects sadly. “Rod was nuts about me when we first met. We spent entire weekends in bed, and only got up to find more condoms or answer the door to the pizza guy. How did I end up stuck in Fulham on my own at forty with three kids, saggy tits, a roof that leaks, and a back that goes out more often than I do?”

I smile ruefully. “Tell me about it. I’m sorry to be such a pain in the rear, Fran. I’m just a bit fed up with Jenna at the moment, that’s all. I really feel she held me hostage over the Olivia business—”

“That bitch! I hope you spread the word.”

“She won’t be welcome in rather a lot of holiday homes in Provence this summer, certainly. Do you remember when we all avoided friends we thought might be after our husbands? Now it’s the nanny-poachers we worry about.”

“How much did you have to pay Jenna to stay?”

“More than I can afford.” I frown as Fran lights up a cigarette; she gives an apologetic smile, but doesn’t stub it out. “I wouldn’t mind quite so much if she was a bit, well, grateful. But she’s been really off with me all week. You know how she can get when she’s in a mood.”

“She’s Mother Teresa compared to bloody Kirsty,” Fran says darkly.

“It’s my own fault. Davina warned me not to try to be her friend. I just didn’t want to be one of those horrible uptight bosses that nannies complain about all the time.
Maybe I did blur the boundaries a bit. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been
quite
so relaxed—”

Fran sucks hard on her cigarette. “We all do it, darling. We’re so terrified they’ll leave. I give in to Kirsty far more than I ever did Rod. We’re like battered wives. We should form a support group.”

“It’s just gotten out of hand, Fran. I didn’t mind at first, sitting down for a bit of a chat in the morning when the twins were napping. I thought it was good to build up some kind of rapport with her. But now, she thinks that if I’m home, that entitles her to stop pretending to work so we can both settle down for a cup of tea and a good natter. She even gets all narky when I ask her to do something, like take the twins on a play-date.” Crossly, I bat cigarette smoke away. “It’s not like she’s a guest. I am actually paying her to do a
job.”

“Oh, dear. The honeymoon’s really over, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Darling, next you’ll be telling me she doesn’t understand you.” She licks her thumb and finger and pinches out her cigarette. “Look, the romance has worn off, that’s all. If you were married, you’d be at the stage where you slump in front of the TV in your old dressing gown and have sex once a month. The magical aura of the heroine who rescued you from a lifetime of shit and nappies has faded. It happens to us all. Soon you’ll be bickering over cleaning up the kitchen or how much time she spends on the phone to her boyfriend.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Buy her chocolates?”

“That’s up to you. The point is, now you have to decide
if you want to stick with each other for better or worse, or get divorced.”

“I know which Marc would rather.” I sigh.

“Talking of which, why on earth didn’t you ask him to come home and let you in? He’s got his own keys, surely?”

I smooth my skirt over my knees. “I tried to call him, but his secretary said he’s gone to an important meeting and couldn’t be reached. Anyway, I’d rather not drag him all the way back home on a fool’s errand.” I hesitate. “He’s been rather … tricky … to deal with lately.”

Fran says nothing.

“I think we just need to spend a bit more time together,” I add defensively. “What with the twins and work, we’ve barely seen each other for weeks. I can’t remember the last time we sat down and
talked.”

“Quite the domestic triangle you have there,” she says lightly. “What with the stroppy nanny and tricky husband.”

“Scylla and Charybdis.” I sigh again.

“As long as Jenna’s the rock, and Marc’s the hard place,” Fran quips.

“Don’t even get me started on—oh! At
last!”
I leap up as the locksmith’s van draws up to the curb. “I’ll get a spare set cut for you, Fran, so we don’t have to go through this again.”

“Just give me Marc’s,” Fran mutters, scrambling to her feet.

I pretend not to hear.

“Of course I’m sure it was her,” I hiss into the phone. “I know what my own nanny looks like!”

“What were they doing?”

“What do you think they were doing, Fran? I just told you, she was kissing him! She had her tongue down his throat. And no, I don’t think she was giving him the kiss of life.”

I hear the click of her lighter. “As long as he doesn’t get her pregnant.”

“It’s not funny! The twins were there!”

“I think they’ll survive the trauma.”

“But she’s my nanny!”

“And he’s your brother. It’s a bit complicated, I agree, but it’s hardly the end of the world. It’s not as if he’s going to marry the girl. Xan’s not the type to marry
any
one.”

This much, at least, is true. “Well, at least I know now why she’s been so stroppy recently,” I snap. “As Davina would say, she’s getting ideas above her station.”

“Clare Elias, don’t tell me you think your mother’s
right?”

“Of course not,” I say uncomfortably.

I’m not a snob. I’m not! I’ve always thought of Jenna as my equal. In many respects, she’s a lovely girl: honest, loyal, practical, and organized. Just the sort of girl Xan needs, in fact. I wish he
would
meet someone and settle down; it’d be the making of him. It’s just … not
Jenna
.

I can’t help it: The thought makes my hackles rise. I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t mind Jenna being my equal when it’s my choice. But the idea of her as my sister-in-law … with as much right to walk into Long Meadow as me …

I turn into Kensington Church Street and begin the search for a parking space. For once, the gods are smiling on
me: Another Range Rover pulls out of a large space close to the restaurant and I nip quickly into it, to the annoyance of a virtuous hybrid coming the other way, and get out.

Spotting Jenna in a heavy clinch with my brother had one upside: It distracted me briefly from my nerves.

I stop walking. I don’t know why I’m here. What was I thinking?

I look down at my unfamiliar high heels, the clingy wool dress that Jenna persuaded me into buying at the sale last week—“body-con,” she called it—the beaten silver bangles on my wrists. It’s not the kind of outfit I’d normally wear, though I have to admit it’s younger and sexier than anything else I own. But I have no business looking young or sexy. I shouldn’t have worn this dress, or these ridiculous heels. I shouldn’t have spent an hour on my makeup this morning, or had my legs sugar-waxed specially at the salon.

I shouldn’t have come
.

I make up my mind to get back in the car and leave, to call him with some excuse about work or the children; but somehow, almost against my will, I find myself heading not back towards the car, but into the restaurant. I push open the glass door, and give my name to the painfully cool girl at the restaurant lectern, smoothing down my dress yet again as she leads me over to his table.

He stands as I approach, but to my immense relief makes no move to kiss my cheek, or even shake my hand.

“I thought you’d changed your mind,” he says.

“I did,” I admit. “Several times.”

Cooper nods shortly, as if confirming my right to dither.

“I can’t stay long,” I warn.

He glances around the restaurant, as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. “Do you want to stay here?” he asks brusquely.

I chose this smart Kensington restaurant because it’s vibrant and busy, a place to see and be seen in. There was to be no question of a small, discreet Italian restaurant in an unfamiliar part of town. Any number of my friends were likely to be lunching here. I had my explanation ready: I was meeting Cooper for lunch, to thank him for his help over Poppy, for persuading Ella to look at our case. There was nothing underhanded or secretive about it.

But Cooper looks as out of place as a wolf in a cage of parakeets. He doesn’t belong indoors, in this kind of gilt-and-gingerbread setting. There’s something wild and elemental about him. In his plain, fine-knit gray sweater and jeans, he makes all the other men in the restaurant, dressed in their expensive suits and flashy watches and hand-stitched brogues, look somehow effete and immature.

I don’t actually like it here, I realize. It’s chic and stylish and the food is amazing. I’ve been here a thousand times. And I hate it.

“No,” I say, my heart lifting with the unfamiliar freedom of being honest and pleasing myself. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go to the park.”

He pushes past the waitress, ignoring her outraged protests. I follow him outside, tripping in the stupid shoes, trying to keep up with his long stride.

Cooper stops suddenly. “Take them off. They’re not you.”

If Marc had said that, I’d bristle with indignation. Instead, I meekly slip off my heels and stand on the dusty,
dirty pavement in my bare feet. Cooper isn’t being arrogant. He’s not telling me what to do. He’s simply stating a fact. The heels
aren’t
me. The fashionable restaurant isn’t me. The designer clothes, London, Marc’s shiny, glittery rich friends, the expensive car, the nannies and cleaners and gardeners: None of it is me.

We turn into Kensington Gardens and I savor the whisper of cool grass between my bare toes. We walk across the park, past children shrieking with laughter, towards The Orangery and Kensington Palace. For perhaps ten minutes we stroll without speaking, my heels swinging in my hand, and I realize with a sense of mingled shock and relief that I barely know this man, but would follow him anywhere. It has nothing to do with love, or even lust.
Trust
. I trust him. For the first time in my life, I can relax my guard. I know this is someone I don’t have to care for or worry over or look after; someone who will take care of
me
.